Enter the Piaget Limelight Gala Precious Sapphire Gradient in a shimmering white gold bracelet and dial adorned with dazzling blue gradient gemstones.
Conceived in 1973, the Piaget Limelight Gala collection has charmed celebrities, artists and friends of the Maison alike with its extravagant spirit and exquisite craftsmanship that reflected the glamorous era. It was a time when the Piaget Society was in full swing, where stars including Salvador Dali, Jackie Kennedy, Elizabeth Taylor and Andy Warhol would get together for glitzy parties.
Since then, the feminine icon has continued to charm A-listers across the entertainment industry. The Maison claims that not an award ceremony has passed since where one of its Limelight creations has not graced the red carpet.
Nearly 50 years on, Piaget is proud to present new Limelight Gala timepieces that celebrate the collection’s heritage and the Maison’s four pillars of excellence: the Art of Gold, the Art of Light, the Art of Colour and the Art of Movement.
One particular timepiece was set to debut at the Watches & Wonders trade show this April, until the organisers called the event off due to coronavirus concerns. Enter the Piaget Limelight Gala Precious Sapphire Gradient watch.
The Art of Gold
The new Limelight Gala Precious (Ref. G0A45163) embraces the collection’s signature design with a hand-engraved gold bracelet and dial. Piaget is one of few Maisons with the savoir-faire to fashion handmade gold bracelets, a rare traditional craft that started in the ‘60s. Likened to the craftsmanship of haute couture dressmaker, the chainsmith tightly assembles hundreds of gold links, painstakingly soldering them into an elegant bracelet.
Drawing inspiration from nature, the Swiss luxury watchmaker and jeweller has crafted bracelets in over a hundred different patterns, including leather, waves, frost, fur, bark and snake scales.
The updated white gold bracelet in this timepiece is hand-engraved in the Palace Décor style, an iconic Piaget motif which entails hours of craftsmanship. Only a handful of artisans who work in Piaget’s “Workshop of Extraordinary Creations” possess the skill to create this exclusive motif.
This style is also used for the engraving of the white gold dial, which is completed by the same artisan to ensure a uniform design. Further highlighting the unique Décor is a layer of translucent blue enamel that is oven-fired multiple times at over 800 ℃ – a technique known as “Grand Feu” Enamel.
The Art of Light
Aside from its shimmering white gold features, there’s another good reason why it is named ‘Limelight Gala’. The timepiece is defined by sensual curves, a perfectly integrated case and asymmetrical lugs adorned with a combination of precious gemstones that naturally draw the limelight to itself.
To amplify the brilliance of the stones, Piaget sets the gems using a Serti Descendu technique, which is an open-worked style of gem-setting for larger stones. This allows the maximum amount of light to shine through while allowing the stones to appear like they are held together invisibly instead of being set in gold.
The Art of Colour
In order to find the perfect coloured gemstones for the collection, Piaget’s artisans sampled large quantities of gemstones to find the right match. This was one of the most challenging tasks in the making of the timepieces, especially when taking the large progressive size of the gemstones and the Maison’s high gem quality standards into consideration.
The Art of Movement
Embodying Piaget’s watchmaking and jewellery making expertise, the dazzling timepiece features a 32mm case housing a quartz movement, caliber 690P. The resulting watch is artistic, sophisticated and unmistakably feminine – paying homage to the original Limelight Gala whilst refining its beauty for the modern context.
Discover the full Limelight Gala collection on the official website here.
Photos: Piaget